Water Restrictions are not a valid excuse Kevin!

Back on the campaign trail for Kev’s Patch last night after some inspiration from Julie and littlem over at the Kev’s Patch campaign website.

Here is the second letter I wrote to the Hon Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Subject: Kev’s Patch – Organic Vegetable Gardening at the Lodge

Dear Prime Minister Rudd,

I am writing to encourage you to reconsider having a vegetable patch at The Lodge or Kirrabili House. I received a reply back from you stating that water restrictions was the main factor for not starting an organic vegetable garden at the Lodge.

Recently we have seen Her Majesty The Queen, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and President Barack Obama add vegetable gardens to their place of residence.

A productive edible garden can be used to illustrate the solution to a number of important issues facing all Australians.

- Growing our own fruit and vegetables reduces carbon emissions by reducing the transportation of produce, and reduce household waste with composting.

- Home-grown vegetables save water. David Holgrem states that “every dollar’s worth of fruit and vegetables has needed at least 103 litres of water to mature. Every equivalent dollar’s worth of home grown food uses only 20 litres.”

- Water conservation can also be demonstrated with the use of rainwater tanks and greywater systems– one of your Government’s own initiatives.

- There are a number of drought tolerant edible plants (amaranth, beans, broccoli, cucumber, quinoa, rockmelon, tomato, watermelon) including Australian natives (bush tomato, davidson’s plum, lemon myrtle, midyim, native lime, native ginger, native rosella, scrub cherry, riberry, warrigal greens, wild raspberry) that could be grown to show that drought conditions are not an impediment to having a productive garden.

- Gardening is a good way to exercise and can assist families save money in these trying economic times.

Clive Blazey of the Diggers Club has worked out that you need “only 24% of the potential water from roof collection or just 37% of the potential recycled greywater” to grow enough fruit and vegetables to support a family of four. Clive’s article uses figures that are based on Melbourne, which has a similar annual rainfall to Canberra. Alternatively, Sydney has a higher rainfall and more relaxed water restrictions, so there’s no reason why Kirrabili House couldn’t have a vegetable patch.

I would love to see the Australian Prime Minister take the initiative on this relatively inexpensive project to set an example on how gardening can play a part in tackling water conservation and climate change.

Yours sincerely,

Gavin

For more information and other letter templates that you can use to craft your own campaign letter, visit www.kevspatch.com for more information. Join the campaign and help the future I attempted to describe yesterday to become partly a reality.

Watch out Kev, or I will send the chooks around! Edwina can get mighty grumpy when she doesn’t get her daily greens!

Will this article help someone you know? If so help them out by sharing now!

About Gavin Webber

Gavin Webber's daily goal is to live a more sustainable lifestyle, in an effort to reduce his family's environmental footprint so we can all make a difference for our children & future generations to come.

Comments

Quite right Gavin, I only live a few kms from Kirribilli House and we get plenty of rain most of the time. We also availed ourselves of the rebate and put in a water tank for those drier times that are forecast with the return of El Nino.

Follow my work

About Gavin Webber

An Ordinary Australian Man Who Has A Green Epiphany Whilst Watching A Documentary, Gets a Hybrid Car, Plants A Large Organic Vegetable Garden, Goes Totally Solar, Lowers Consumption, Feeds Composts Bins and Worms, Harvests Rainwater, Raises Chickens, Makes Cheese and Soap, and Eats Locally. All In The Effort To Reduce Our Family's Carbon Footprint So We Can Start Making A Difference For Our Children & Future Generations To Come.